


To Build a Home

by crinklefries



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, But a romantic one, Childhood Sweethearts, Established Relationship, Getting Back Together, I will always give Thor and Loki their happy ending, I'm told this is an emotional journey, M/M, Married Couple, Melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 15:58:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18502243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinklefries/pseuds/crinklefries
Summary: There’s something to be said about endings.He's in the middle of one, a story in its epilogue, his chest split open for words on a page. Loki looks at the half-gutted, half-finished, empty shell of a kitchen around him.Dreams end by those who started them.or;Sometimes, in order to come back together, you have to fall apart first. But Thor and Loki will always come back together.





	To Build a Home

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 日本語 available: [To Build a Home (Japanese Translation)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21088733) by [Sarah_translator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah_translator/pseuds/Sarah_translator)



> \+ This fic is dedicated to [Ariel](https://twitter.com/saltybitch_), for always harassing me with thorki feelings, starting at 9 am and ending at 1 am, every day. Thank you for letting me send you snips 12x a day, I enjoy our mutual suffering, always. ♥
> 
> \+ Thank you also to [calendulae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calendulae) for reading this fic even though you don't even go to this ship!! YOUR COMMENTS MADE ME REALLY EMO AND MADE ME FEEL LIKE THIS WHOLE THING WASN'T A DISASTER. Thank you. :(
> 
> *
> 
> \+ I listened to [We Can Try by Between the Trees](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2tsCUm4D4s) one morning last week and couldn't get this story out of my head. I hope I did it (and them) justice. ♥ 

_What would you say if_ _I_  
Told you that all  
I've thought about i _s you_  
_Since you been gone_  
_I wish some way, some how_  
_I could turn this world right back around_  
_And mend mistakes I made_

 

 

*

**one.**

It’s lonely, in a cage of your own making.

There’s a thick layer of dust everywhere; an inch covering worn, granite countertops, two inches coating the ground, the plyboards torn from the base of the house, the foundations ripped from the very heart of it, leaving behind nothing but half-rusted nails and dirt-streaked baseboards. There are tarps covering cabinets he spent hours picking out, a bright, silver sink he helped carry from the truck to the kitchen counter. He remembers sliding it into place, a pair of bright blue eyes watching him, smiling as he reached forward and turned the curved handle.

“The water’s running clear now,” he had said, awed and near gleeful, and the blue eyes had brightened, an expression so fond it could break rivers without rockbeds.

“I fixed the plumbing,” he had said, a proud smudge of a smile beneath wild golden hair. “I did it all by myself, Lo. I told you I would.”

Loki remembers it now, fingers on the handles of a sparkling new sink, warmth in his stomach, a smile on his face. He remembers wishing for nothing more than this, a glass of cold, clear water and Thor’s hand at his waist, his mouth pressed against his own.

The sink is dirty now, streaked with dust and dirt, beige and brown swirls gathered at the drain. The water doesn’t run clear anymore. It’s been turned off all together.

He turns in the space around him and feels it settle on his shoulders, in his hair, the overwhelming weight of this—the empty air around him. There’s dust on the ground and paint on the walls.

He remembers the cabinets too.

“What do you think about these?” he had said, pressed against Thor’s side, Thor’s arm around his back. Thor’s chin resting on top of Loki’s shoulder, his hair tickling Loki’s cheek.

“Green in a kitchen?” Thor had asked, smiling.

Loki had felt that too, if not against his skin, then somewhere deeper inside. Thor turned his head and pressed a kiss to Loki’s jaw and he remembers the unbearable softness of it, a gesture easily given, thoughtless in how sweetly it comes.

“White, then?” Loki had asked. “White gets so dirty, Thor.”

“What about those, then?” Thor had asked, leaning back over Loki’s shoulder. His fingertip brushed the picture of cabinets made of dark mahogany, small round handles the color of liquid mercury.

“They won’t make it seem dark?” Loki had asked, but with a small smile.

“They’ll make it seem like home,” Thor had said. His mouth had found its way back to Loki’s cheek again, and then his jaw, and then his neck.

“Thor,” Loki had admonished, his thoughts derailing.

Thor’s hand at his waist, then slipping under his shirt. Thor’s hand, large and rough, familiar and all his, sliding against his skin.

Thor had turned him around, pressed him against the kitchen counter, and Loki had gasped soft breaths into his mouth, the cabinets forgotten.

The cabinets are empty now, the plastic over them blurry and dirty.

He looks at the splinters in the palms of his hands and feels the beginnings and ends of them. He remembers learning, or thinking, when he was younger, that they could poison you; splinters, left too long, would rot in your bloodstream, sit inside you, decaying, until they made you sick from the inside out.

There’s something poetic there, he thinks.

Is that what happens to the heart too? Loki wonders.

Maybe there’s splinters of the heart too. What starts as a chip, nestled deep inside, slowly poisons you if you forget to treat it; just as dangerous as wood under the skin and much more painful to recover from.

Some things there’s no recovering and the heart is one of them, he thinks.

There’s something to be said about endings.

He’s in the middle of one, a story in its epilogue, his chest split open for words on a page. He looks at the half-gutted, half-finished, empty shell of a kitchen around him.

Dreams end by those who started them.

He feels the space in his chest where something else used to be; an ache now, a splinter of his own. His breath catches on the empty air around him. There’s an anvil where his heart used to be. He had cleaved it out himself and this is all he has left to show for it—a half-finished kitchen and splinters in the palms of his hands.

He crouches to his knees, hands shaking over his face. He bleeds where no one can see.  
  
  
Loki turns the lights off before leaving. 

 

*

**two.**

They’re together for over three years, although Loki thinks he knows it before the end of their first. It’s written in the way Thor looks at him, his face lighting up every time they meet for a date, his expression soft and thoughtful, a fondness there he can’t quite erase from the edges of his mouth. It’s the way Loki’s heart ticks up every time their fingers brush, the way he feels flushed with heat when Thor touches his wrist, when he interlaces their fingers together. It’s the way Thor never seems to stop touching him, when and where he can, a brush of their fingers, his mouth at Loki’s jaw, tugging at the bottom of Loki’s curls, pressing in close to his back.

It’s the way Loki feels whenever he’s with him, every time he’s with him, intimate or not, as though the ground, usually rushing beneath his feet, stills; as though his surroundings, usually dull and grey with mediocrity, come to life.

Thor smiles at him and Loki catches it between his teeth, swallows the sight of him leaning over him, the bed to Loki’s back, Thor’s golden head crowned in a golden halo above.

When they kiss, Loki goes weak at the knees.

It’s three years of him nearly buckling when Thor’s mouth finds his, his hand at Thor’s biceps, Thor’s breath in his ears.

Thor offers him a key at the end of their first year together and Loki takes it.  
  
  
They both call Frigga and Odin six months later, when Loki doesn’t renew his lease.  
  
  
“I love having your weird stuff around the place,” Thor says, his arms around Loki’s shoulders, leaning into Loki’s back. He sets his chin on Loki’s shoulder and presses a kiss to Loki’s jaw. Loki learned, a long time ago, that this is one of Thor’s favorite places. He’s learned these things; that when Thor is angry with him, he storms out, and when Thor is amused at him, he throws his head back and laughs, and when Thor is feeling inappropriately, unbearably affectionate, he will wrap his arms around Loki from behind and rest his chin on Loki’s shoulder.

“It isn’t weird,” Loki says and swats at his big, bright boyfriend. “It’s what happens when you have taste, but are on a budget.”

“My budget is your budget now,” Thor says.

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Loki says, mouth quirking. “We’re living together, we’re not married.”

Thor hums in his ear and then lifts him up, despite Loki’s protests, and carries him to their bedroom to test out their new bed.  
  
  
Friday is their date nights. They don’t always have the time or energy to go out, make a production of it, but they try to do something, because they’ve been together three wonderful, happy years and what keeps them wonderful and happy is that they make time for each other. Sometimes Thor comes home too late and sometimes Loki leaves too early and some weeks they barely have the energy to get in a word edgewise, but it doesn’t matter to them, because when Friday comes, Thor will text Loki an address and Loki will get in his car and meet him there—no matter the time, no matter how tired he is.

Thor texts him an address that ends up being for the planetarium.

“I know you’re a space nerd,” Thor grins when Loki gets out of the car.

Thor’s there next to his motorcycle, in his favorite leather jacket, his hair loose in the wind. He looks happy, almost glowing in the goldens and peaches of the setting afternoon sun. It makes Loki’s chest hurt, to look at a love so bright; to look at him and know that Thor is his love and that he is Thor’s as well.

“What?” Thor says, frowning. “Is there something on my face?”

“Yes,” Loki says and reaches him, runs a finger through Thor’s beard. “And it scratches me constantly.”

“Mm,” Thor says and leans down, arm around Loki’s shoulder, rubbing his face against Loki’s cheek. Loki yelps and Thor laughs. “I know you love that beard burn.”

“My skin begs to differ,” Loki grumbles, pulling back and rubbing his hand against his pink cheek.

“Your skin is smoother than a baby’s bottom,” Thor says and then does actually kiss him.

“Every part of that sentence was inappropriate,” Loki says and kisses him back. He lingers for a moment, breathing Thor in. “You smell good.”

“I used the shampoo you bought me,” Thor grins. “You like it?”

“I did buy it for you,” Loki grins and Thor laughs. He kisses Thor again and then pulls back. “Come, show me the planets that aren’t yet dying.”

“Oh, there’s loads of them,” Thor says. “We just don’t happen to be on one of them.”  
  
  
They go inside and spend an hour looking around the different displays. Loki reads the placards out loud—they learn about supernovas, black holes, planets, and different galaxies. They walk around human-sized models of the Solar System, Thor measuring himself against Jupiter and Loki declaring himself Queen of Saturn. They find out how much they each weigh on Mars. Thor lifts Loki up, despite his laughter and protests, and they find out how much they both weigh on Mars.

Thor kisses Loki under a display of the constellations. Loki tilts Thor’s head up and points out what they’re here in homage to—the stars on Orion’s belt, the throne behind Cassiopeia, the handles of the Big and Little Dippers. When Thor looks back down at Loki, it takes his breath away. He sees something else there; not an homage to the stars, but devotion to him.

He can’t look at it too long without it hurting. He pulls on Thor’s arm instead, and they read about the great Red Storm on Jupiter.  
  
  
“There’s a star show inside,” Thor says, checking the pamphlet. “Shall we?”

“Sure,” Loki says and follows him.  
  
  
It’s not a very popular star show, that much is clear. In fact, there’s no one inside but the two of them.

“Are you sure they’re going to run it for an audience of two?” Loki frowns.

“They run it on the hour, every hour, no matter who’s here,” Thor says. He waves the pamphlet around. “It says so in here.”

Loki gives Thor a dubious look, but lets him lead them to seats in the center of the curved planetarium. Already the room is dark, the top of the dome a cast of the night sky.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Thor asks, taking a seat and looking up.

“The real thing is better,” Loki smiles. “But I guess the planets are kind of hard to see.”

Thor snorts next to him and offers Loki his hand. Loki takes it and then settles closer, his head tilted onto Thor’s shoulder, and they watch the show as it starts.  
  
  
The thing about space is that the enormity of it is almost impossible to grasp. The endless, almost reckless sprawl of space and space matter makes almost everything in the universe seem inconsequential—galaxies, planets, the Earth, people, all of it is less than dust. Space is magnificent in its enormitude; it’s vast and terrifying and horrible and beautiful. Loki shivers just thinking about it. The star show talks about black holes and stars and stardust and the edges of the known universe and he feels his breath coming up short. He turns his head, presses his face into Thor’s arm.

“I hate this,” he says, voice muffled.

“I thought you loved space,” Thor says, sounding concerned.

“I do,” Loki mumbles. “And I hate it. It’s awful.”

Thor hums and strokes Loki’s hair. Once Loki feels he’s better able to handle the feeling of being adrift in the great Cosmos, Thor leans back over to him.

“Do you know, I find it comforting, in a way.”

“What, being a speck of nothing?” Loki asks bitterly.

“No,” Thor laughs. He looks at Loki and then looks back up at the stars. “Out of all of the billion stars and galaxies out there, of everything in the known universe, everything came together to form you, specifically.”

“What?” Loki blinks.

“The...coincidences that were needed, Loki. The details, everything in the whole universe, coming together, all at once, at the exact right time, in the exact right configuration, every atom coming together to make you, as a person. And me, beside you.”

Loki frowns, looking at Thor watching the space above them.

“Are you ill?”

“No,” Thor laughs. He looks at Loki, his eyes shining. “What I’m saying is that the universe is so big, but we’re so small. And in the middle of all that, we were made and we found each other. We lost each other once, but we found each other again, all the same. Isn’t that beautiful, Lo? Isn’t that miraculous?”

“It’s scary is what it is,” Loki mutters, but he can’t help the way that his chest tightens at the thought.

“Want to make it scarier?” Thor asks with a mischievous grin.

“No?” Loki says, then frowns. “How?”

“There’s a telescope up top,” Thor says and tugs Loki out of his seat. “Come on.”  
  
  
“I don’t think this is legal,” Loki mutters, eyeing the signs that Thor insists on ignoring as they climb the stairs to the outside observatory.

“It’s fine, you worry too much,” Thor says and drags them all the way to the top.

“You’re alive because I worry too much,” Loki grumbles.

Thor pushes the door open and Loki has to sigh a little. Before them, all around them, is the city at night. He can see glass structures and houses, hills going up and hills going down. It’s lit by house lights, like a landscape of fireflies in the distance, but not so bright that it drowns out how dark and quiet it is up here at the top of their known little world.

“You’re being grumpy again. Look through here and then we can go have dinner,” Thor says.

Loki’s stomach _does_ grumble, but he doesn’t let Thor know that. He takes his place next to the enormous telescope. It’s twice the size of his body.

“You can see stars and planets from galaxies away from here,” Thor says somewhere distantly above him.

Loki looks through the viewfinder and adjusts some knobs. It’s blurry and grainy, but beautiful. He sees what he thinks are whole planets, galaxies he’s never heard of. He knows that the starlight he gets is the light of stars that have died centuries ago. It’s a message from a long-gone, distant past. It makes him feel a little lost; a little lonely.

Thor seems to understand this without saying anything. Loki feels his arm around him.

“Gods,” Loki says. “I feel like nothing.”

“The thing is,” Thor says above him. “We’re all nothing.”

Loki pauses and looks at a galaxy, lightyears away.

“All right?”

“But if we’re both nothing and we’re nothing together, then doesn’t that mean something?” Thor says.

Loki blinks, withdrawing from the telescope.

“I don’t think that’s how an existential crisis works, Thor,” Loki says, turning.

It’s only then that he notices something. It isn’t the quiet of the top of the observatory; it’s not even the way the hills light up, the closed door, the light music playing somewhere in the background.

No, what Loki notices is the entire deck, lit up in little fairy lights, the whole top of the observatory glowing in little constellations. It’s almost otherworldly beautiful.

“Thor?” Loki calls.

“If you’re going to have an existential crisis, I want it to be with me,” Thor says.

Loki turns back around and everything in his head pulls up short, immediately. Thor, behind him, is on one knee, a sheepish grin on his face.

“What?” Loki blinks stupidly.

“Okay that was stupid,” Thor laughs. His face looks like it’s going to break, he’s beaming so hard. All of him looks—stupidly rumpled and stupidly happy. “Maybe space is a nightmare, Loki, but Earth isn’t. Not with you. If I have to be an inconsequential speck of dust, then I would rather be an inconsequential speck of dust here with you than a consequential lump of star matter anywhere else.”

“This is—” Loki says, trying to find his words and failing. And then he groans. “I can’t believe how stupid you are.”

“I know,” Thor grins. “Isn’t that what you love about me? I think it usually goes, Thor you’re an idiot. You absolute, insufferable oaf. I can’t believe I love you.”

“That does sound familiar,” Loki says, his heart beating fast. “Well? Get on with it. A dozen stars are dying as we speak.”

“You’re right, they should be around for this,” Thor says and takes a breath. When he releases it, he looks—so soft. So unbelievably fond. “Loki, I never thought I was going to see you again. The day you left us was honestly one of the worst days I’ve ever had. I spent years looking for you. And then, long after I’d given up, I found you again. I don’t know—maybe it’s nothing, but maybe it’s fate. I believe in Fate, Lo.”

“I know you do,” Loki says and is horrified to find he sounds almost watery. “You idiot.”

Thor smiles.

“Well whatever the reason, I don’t care. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you that day. Sometimes I think I still can’t believe it. That I found you again. That I got you again,” Thor says. “If it’s not the worst idea to you, I think I’d like to keep what I found. For the rest of forever sounds pretty good to me.”

“What does that mean?” Loki says with a strained laugh. “Out with it.”

“Loki Laufeyson,” Thor grins, wider. “Will you share my budget with me?”

“Idiot!” Loki shouts and Thor laughs, gets up from his knee and catches him by the small of his back.

“Will you marry me?” Thor asks and kisses him. “Will you marry me, Loki?”

“You’re supposed to give me the ring before you kiss me!” Loki protests, still shouting, but Thor is too busy messily kissing him, over and over again, until Loki is laughing, his arms around Thor’s shoulder, his entire body shivering from delight.

“Well?” Thor says, breathlessly.

“You fool,” Loki says and he can’t quite stop smiling. “You absolute, insufferable oaf. Of course I’ll marry you.”

Thor looks then like he’s never looked before and possibly will never look again—as though the meaning of the universe is here, in his hands, as though the Big Bang and the stars and all of the galaxies are inconsequential, compared to this, compared to them.

“I love space,” Thor says and kisses Loki again. “It’s my favorite place in the whole universe.”

“I hate you,” Loki says, still laughing. Then he slows down enough to let Thor slide the ring onto his finger. It glints silver in the moonlight. “I can’t believe I love you.”  
  
  
They dance to no music, on top of the observatory deck, under all of those universes and stars.

When they call Frigga and Odin later to let them know, Frigga cries. 

 

*

**three.**

He’s not particularly good with his hands is the funny and sad thing. He needs to rip out the granite of the old countertop and sand down what’s left behind so that the new one can be placed on top.

Loki knows his strengths, so he’s not stupid enough to pretend he can carry the entire new slab in to replace it. This part was never meant for him, although he supposes that doesn’t matter now.

He has his hair up and there’s dust in it. There’s dust covering his sneakers, dust clinging to the edge of his loose, drawstring pants. There’s so must dust in the folds of his soft, oversized t-shirt that it’s almost embedded into his skin.

He almost forgets it’s Thor’s shirt.

Loki looks at the directions on his phone and puts it down on one of the counters by the sink. He turns back toward the kitchen island, cloth over his mouth, and picks up the mallet.

Gathering all of the strength in his arms and bracing his feet against the ground, he strikes with everything he has.  
  
  
It’s fucking hard. The vibrations roll up through his arms, making his teeth chatter and his head hurt. It’s cathartic the first few strikes, but then he has to grit his teeth and ignore the burning in his arms. He braces himself and hits the granite methodically, hit-after-hit, sweating, panting through the sharp burn.

Sweat drips into his eyes and he tries to shove it out of the way. The granite is definitely splintered, but only a few larger chunks have sloughed off. The rest keeps finely cracking into smaller and smaller pieces, until he stops to take a break, shoves ground up granite pieces off the counter and onto the littered floor.

He grabs a bottle of water in the next room and chugs half of it.

He returns and finds half of the counter left to demolish. His arms ache, his back aches—every part of him hurts.

He wishes he had someone to lean on.

He wishes he had someone to take him in his arms, hold him and let him rest.

Loki picks up the mallet, his chest aching.

He has no one, though.

It’s him, a mallet, and a ground out, dark kitchen.  
  
  
By the time he finishes, it’s close to midnight and he’s so tired he would cry if he had the energy to.

The sanding will have to wait.

He picks up his phone and turns to leave, only for his foot to catch on the handle of the mallet. He goes down roughly, his knees slamming into the ground, just missing some half-pulled nails. Pieces of granite grind into him and he hisses in pain.

There’s dust in his eyes now, in his mouth.

He hurts so much he can barely stand it.

Loki crawls over to his phone and turns it on, only to see the crack across the screen. He unlocks it, scrolls to his favorites and almost does it.

He’s so exhausted and sore and heartbroken he almost presses **THOR ❤️**.

He catches himself just in time, his thumb hovering over his name. He can’t be this pathetic. Not when Thor had made it perfectly clear—

Fuck.

 _Fuck_ , Loki thinks, grabbing the ends of his dirty hair and pulling hard.

“Fuck!” he finally screams out loud.

He throws his phone as hard as he can across the hallway. It hits the wall and there’s another crunch before it goes skittering down the corridor.

Loki pulls his hurt knees up, loops his arms around, presses his head to the top, and cries. 

 

*

**four.**

He’s on his meager thirty minute lunch break, sitting by the window of the Poké shop, picking at pieces of salmon with his chopsticks, contemplating the endless disappointment of life, when he feels a hand at his shoulder.

He looks up sharply into a pair of sharp blue eyes and golden hair pulled back into a neat bun. The man has on tight jeans and a suit jacket pulled across a chest the size of a small ship, a dozen rings on his fingers, and a single bracelet on his right wrist.

“I’m sorry,” the man says and Loki is stunned to see he has crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiles. “I have to ask. You look like someone I used to know.”

Loki looks up into a face he has only a fleeting memory of.

“You see,” the man says. “When I was younger, I had a foster brother for a time. His name was Loki and he looked exactly like you.”  
  
  
When Loki was younger, he spent years of his life in and out of foster care. His parents, who never had their shit together, would show up only when he had finally found a family he felt he could make a home with.

He remembers being in middle school, long, uncut hair, awkward body, too many neglected, misunderstood feelings to not be a complete little shit. His placements weren’t always happy and they weren’t always long, but they were inevitable; like watching his father lose another year of his life to another bottle.

He arrived, a single suitcase and backpack to his name, in front of a large house with red shutters. He knew he would hate it; that he would stick out like a sore thumb, do and say everything wrong. This was a short-lived marriage, it was barely worth it to unpack.

He rang the doorbell, hand clutched around one strap of his backpack. He waited.

The door opened to another boy, his age, with shaggy blond hair and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt.

“Oh,” Loki had said.

“You must be Loki!” the boy had grinned, like he had been waiting all this time. And then, as though they weren’t perfect strangers, like Loki wasn’t wearing a t-shirt that he had outgrown two years ago, with holes in the armpits, and jeans he had cut off at the bottom to make fit, the boy had pulled him into a hug.  
  
  
“Thor,” Loki says, eyes widening, his pulse skipping a beat. “It can’t be you.”

“If you can be Loki, then why can’t I be Thor?” Thor says, face nearly breaking under the breadth of his smile, his eyes lighting up, those crinkles just at the corners.

“I can’t believe it,” Loki says, letting his chopsticks fall into his plastic bowl.

“I’ve been looking for you for so long,” Thor says and, as though Loki isn’t staring at him with disbelieving eyes, a piece of rice stuck to the corner of his mouth, he reaches down and pulls him into a hug.  
  
  
It had been everything Loki had never believed he was worthy of. The Odinsons were warm and affectionate, strict and understanding. They kept him clothed, kept him fed, and believed in him, which was not something Loki was aware was an option for him.

As much as he adored Odin and Frigga, it was Thor who was his favorite. Thor was lively and funny, popular and handsome. He never once made Loki feel he was ashamed to be seen with him. They went to school together, did their homework together, spent their free time playing video games together. Thor brought him out with his friends, took him to the movies, explained sports to him. Loki lent Thor his books, showed him how to climb to the top of trees, raced him down the hill behind the Odinson house to the creek. They swam together in the summer. Loki watched Thor’s hair grow, his skin turn golden and brown.

He told Thor he might like boys, afraid he would ruin everything.

Thor kissed him instead.  
  
  
“Can I take you to dinner?” Thor asks him, Loki pulling out of their hug to look at him, stunned.

He reaches to touch Thor’s hair and stops himself. He touches Thor’s bracelet instead.

“Oh,” Thor says, pink-cheeked and pleased. “I kept it.”

 

Loki spent time with Frigga, learning her crafts. He was good at knitting, great at crocheting, and somehow just meticulous enough for cross-stitching. It gave him something small and difficult to focus his anxious energies on.

He learned how to braid—hair, rope, thread.

“What’s this?” Thor had asked, staring at the multi-colored bracelet in the palm of his hand.

“It’s a friendship bracelet,” Loki said, blushing. “I made us both one. Shut up. It’s cool.”

Thor should have made fun of him, but he didn’t. Instead he had grinned sunnily and offered his palm and wrist to Loki.

“Tie it on for me?” he asked.

Heart skipping, Loki had. Then Thor had tied his on him.

Then they had kissed again.  
  
  
“After all of these years?” Loki asks at dinner.

He spends the rest of the day in a daze, answering calls in a distant blur, checking people into the wrong appointment and charging the wrong thing on the billing statements.

It’s worth it to feel the butterflies in his stomach as Thor shows up, his suit jacket traded in for a leather one, his shoes a stark white against the dark of his jeans.

They meet at a burger restaurant and Loki tells Thor he’s a vegetarian now. Thor orders a veggie burger too and asks Loki if he wants to share an extra large order of French fries and onion rings.

“I took it off for a little while,” Thor admits, slurping on his large Coke. “I didn’t want it to get gross or fall off. But I like it on my wrist. It’s been there so long.”

“God, how long’s it been?” Loki asks through a mouthful of fried potato.

“Twelve years,” Thor says quietly. “You were fourteen when you left.”  
  
  
Loki didn’t leave. Farbauti showed up again, promised to have cleaned up this time. She showed the court she was doing better, that she was clean, that she deserved her son.

It didn’t matter anyway whether that was true. The biological parents always hold the rights.

Three years to the day Loki showed up on the Odinson’s doorsteps, Farbauti takes Loki away from them. He leaves with Thor’s email, the Odinson phone number, and a promise that he’ll visit.

Farbauti takes him to another state and he loses the email and phone number in the process.

She’s back on drugs by the time he’s eighteen, but he’s an adult by then.

He leaves her and tries to go somewhere no one knows him; he goes where no one will ever remember him.  
  
  
“You haven’t changed at all,” Loki says. He reaches for an onion ring and so does Thor.

Their fingers brush and the spark runs like a rush down his spine. He swallows and Thor watches him through heavy eyes.

“No?” Thor says. “I’ve grown taller.”

“And larger,” Loki admits. “Not that. Twelve years and you’re still—you. Everything about you is still Thor.”

Thor makes a face but Loki reaches forward to brush ketchup from the corner of his mouth.

“It’s a good thing.”  
  
  
They talk for hours, finishing their burgers and fries and onion rings.

“Do you still have a sweet tooth?” Thor grins.

“One extra large chocolate and peanut butter milkshake please,” Loki orders from the waiter.

“Two straws,” Thor smiles, his mouth curving up at the corners.  
  
  
Thor tells Loki that Frigga and Odin live by the mountains now, that they’re doing well, that they tried looking for Loki for years before giving up.

“They never fostered again,” Thor says, leaning in to take a sip of their milkshake.

“I was that terrible?” Loki frowns.

“You were that good,” Thor says softly.  
  
  
Loki tells Thor about his dead end secretary job and Thor tells Loki about the start up he helped found. They make apps that help connect people with services they need to survive but can’t afford. It’s just the kind of do-gooder think Loki would expect from his old foster brother.

“Do you like what you do?” Loki asks Thor. He leans in to take a mouthful of milkshake.

“Love it,” Thor grins. He leans in close too. “Do you like what you do?”

“Not really,” Loki says. “But it pays the bill.”

“Sometimes life is more than that,” Thor says.

“Sometimes it should be,” Loki replies darkly. “But life doesn’t treat everyone the same.”

That makes Thor look chastened.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That was insensitive of me.”

Loki doesn’t want to cut their reunion short by making Thor feel bad about his shitty life.

“Will you walk me home?” he asks and slides his coat on.

“Yes,” Thor says automatically.  
  
  
They walk side-by-side down the sidewalk, under the cool, early Spring moon. They’re quiet, but not silent. They listen to the sounds of the streets and the call of their memories.

Their hands keep grazing one another.

Someone jostles past them on the sidewalk and Loki nearly falls off the curb. Thor grabs his wrist to steady him.

He doesn’t let go.  
  
  
Loki’s heart is drumming somewhere near his throat, the back of his neck flushed, every inch of him vibrating.

“This is me,” he says, looking up at the shitty apartment building. He looks at Thor. “I’d invite you up, but it’s a shithole.”

Thor doesn’t let go of his wrist.

“I don’t care, Loki,” he says.

Loki swallows, nerves at his fingertips, and invites him up.  
  
  
Thor has him pressed against the door the second they’re inside—he doesn’t wait for it to lock.

“Is this okay?” he asks, one hand at Loki’s jaw, the other against the door.

Loki looks up at him, eyes dark, skin vibrating with need.

“Am I dreaming?” he asks aloud.

“No,” Thor smiles.

“I didn’t think you’d remember,” Loki says, mouth dry.

“Loki, I—“ Thor starts and stops. He looks nervous for a moment, stricken even. Vulnerable. Then he smooths that away and lifts Loki’s hair from his neck. “I’ve never forgotten.”

When Loki leans up to meet Thor’s mouth, their kiss sinks through his skin into his blood, setting something alight he thought had long since died.  
  
  
They fumble against one another, Thor easing Loki out of his jacket, and Loki yanking Thor’s shirt over his head.

They leave the floor strewn with their clothing as they go and Loki manages to stumble them back toward his bedroom, the room dark except for moonlight streaming in through the window.

Thor is attached to his neck, his fingers scraping along Loki’s bare back. Loki’s breath stutters, his skin hot everywhere, his fingers slipping under the waistband of Thor’s boxer.

“Is this okay?” Thor asks again, mouth back on Loki’s after he’s worked a clear mark into the skin at his neck.

“Yes,” Loki chokes out. “Wait.”

Thor lets go of him immediately and Loki crawls over his bed to his bedside table for lube and condoms.

Thor laughs as Loki throws them at him, but he catches them all the same. He lays them in the middle of the bed and then crawls over to Loki. Loki hooks his fingers into Thor’s underwear and drags it down and then divests himself of his too.

They don’t take much time to look at each other because Thor’s mouth is at his nipple and his fingers wrap around Loki’s cock.

Loki pants, rutting against his hand, and reaches down too, finds Thor’s cock and joins him in stroking.

They lean against each other, hard and worked up, panting into one another’s slick skin until, this time, Loki shifts them, nudges Thor back up to kiss him deeply.

They don’t actually manage to fuck the first time. Loki knocks Thor’s hand off of him and takes both of them into his fist. He pumps both of them at the same time, until Thor groans, biting into his neck and they both come with simultaneous moans.  
  
  
They stay like that, knees on the bed, skin to skin, head dizzy from the rush of endorphins and the adrenaline of—this. Whatever this is.

“Loki,” Thor says, voice nearly wrecked. He slings a large arm around Loki’s sweat-slick back and holds him close until Loki wraps his arms back around and holds him back. “I missed you.”

Jesus.

Loki rests his forehead against the top of Thor’s chest.

“I missed you too,” he says.  
  
  
That’s only the beginning, see?

Because when you’ve been in love with someone nearly your entire life, the beginning is the best part of all. 

 

*

**five.**

They bought the King sized bed, even though it had cost hundreds of dollars more than a Full and that would have been fine. Loki had insisted, is the funny part.

“You take up too much space,” he had complained when they first moved in and surveyed their home.

“That’s called cuddling, honey,” Thor had said and Loki had snorted and smacked his arm.

“I know what cuddling is, jackass. You take up the whole bed and then I’m left with half a foot on the side.”

“You’re only about half a foot wide, Lo,” Thor said and Loki had pinched him.

Thor had taken that as an affront and wrestled him to the ground. The wrestling had turned to...other activities.

“Some space would be nice,” Thor admitted, half panting, half staring at the ceiling in bliss.

“Thank you,” Loki had replied, reaching over to pat Thor’s sweaty chest.

“I’m still cuddling you though,” Thor grinned, reached over, smacked a kiss against Loki’s cheek, and got up to put his pants back on.  
  
  
It’s funny now, when the bed dwarfs him. Loki lies on his usual side, but there’s whole feet of the bed that seem cold, a yawning stretch of sheet and comforter far beyond his arm span. It makes him feel untethered, sinking in a space of his own making.

He moves around, rolls to the middle.

Then he moves around and rolls to the other side.

He splays himself out, like a starfish.

It doesn’t work. He’s not big enough to take up the space he and Thor took up together.

Is it possible to swallowed by the crater of your failed relationship? Does it mean something when your own bed doesn’t seem to want you?

He stares at the ceiling above him, the sheets and comforter twisted all around him.

“You move too much,” Thor used to say. “You’re like some kind of...wriggly octopus.”

It had been charming, at first. Loki would move all over in the middle of the night, until his body hit the solid wall of Thor’s. Then Thor, in his sleep or otherwise, would wrap an arm across Loki, settling him, holding him in place. It was all metaphorical, somehow, but it worked well for years. Loki would settle and Thor would anchor him there and when they both woke up, there would be enough sheet for them both.

It worked less well once they stopped listening to each other.

“You move too much” in an affectionate tone became “ _Will you lay still, Jesus_?” and Loki waking up, warm and loved in Thor’s arm became “ _Will you get off me? I don’t want to be smothered to death every single fucking morning._ ”

It’s funny, how fast everything falls apart.

Now Loki has all the space in the world to move around in and no one to hold him anchored.

He feels it open up, in the center of him, that vast, aching, terrible space Thor used to fill. Loki’s never liked sleeping alone. He hasn’t had to sleep alone in a very long time. He turns, expecting Thor to be there, and he isn’t. He wakes up, expecting a warm, solid body beside him, and it’s not there either.

He remembers all of the mornings they spent together in bed, learning one another, breathing each other in. Some days it was sex and some days it was just existing, Loki’s head on Thor’s shoulder, Thor’s arm curved around Loki’s back, his large hand resting against Loki’s hip.

Sometimes they would watch TV and other times they would be quiet, Loki reading and Thor scrolling through his phone. It never felt like there was anything more they needed or anything less that would be welcome. They were each other’s worlds, or it seemed like it, for a time.

“You idiot,” Loki says out loud now, staring blankly at the ceiling, in the middle of their too-big bed. It’s cold all around him. He might never be warm again. “You absolute, insufferable fool.”

He doesn’t think he’s talking about Thor anymore.

Thor would laugh at that; if he was still here to listen.

Loki turns again in his bed, cold and listless, and tries to fall asleep.

It’s a long time before he can stop feeling like he’s sinking and an even longer time before he falls into a fitful sleep, the loneliness gnawing at his ribs. 

 

*

**six.**

Their wedding is on a beautiful day in the middle of August. It’s not too hot, which is good because Loki doesn’t care to be sweating under his tuxedo.

“Our marriage is going to be a Leo,” Thor grins and tries to kiss his fiance.

“That’s a stupid, Leo thing to say,” Loki says and swats at Thor with a magazine. “Don’t kiss me before our vows. That’s bad luck.”  
  
  
It’s a small, intimate affair by design—just Thor and Loki, Odin and Frigga, and a handful of friends—Thor’s best man, Fandral, and Loki’s best man, Bucky Barnes, and some childhood friends of Thor’s; Sif, Heimdall, Valkyrie, Volstagg, Hogun, and Bruce. It’s more of Thor’s friends than Loki’s, but he doesn’t mind. By now, Thor’s friends are his friends too and besides, Loki has Frigga walking him down the aisle and that’s all he’s ever really wanted.

It’s the handful of them in Odin and Frigga’s backyard, a white, wooden arch laden with flowers that Thor built himself, by Loki’s favorite oak tree. The tree is strung with lights and tinsel as is almost everything in the yard. Thor and Loki had strung the fairy lights up themselves, in the shapes of little constellations and clusters of stars. There are white and red flowers in tall vases on tables, and a white path of cloth and teal flower petals that cuts from the back door to the altar.

“It looks beautiful,” Frigga says and pats Loki’s arm. “You and Thor did wonderfully.”

Loki gives Frigga a smile, pleased and affectionate, and leans forward to press a kiss to her cheek.

“Thank you for walking me down the aisle,” he says.

“You’re like a son to me,” Frigga says, smiling herself. “And now, legally. Odin and I are so happy to have you in the family at last, my love.”

That means more to Loki than he’ll ever have the words to say.

Someone—Valkyrie, maybe—starts playing the piano.

“Shall we get you married?” Frigga asks.

“I suppose,” Loki replies, as though he’s not looking down the path immediately, eyes searching for the only person he ever searches for anyway.  
  
  
Thor stands next to Odin, in a suit of pure white, a red shirt underneath. His hair is half tied back, with braids through the middle. Loki had chosen a pink flower for his hair. It sits to the side of Thor’s bun, the petals rustling when he turns to look at Loki.

In all of his lives to come, Loki doesn’t think he will ever be able to capture this in words—the feeling of looking down the aisle and seeing the person in the world he loves the most—the person who was made for him, who he was made for—and seeing his face break into a smile so bright, so fond, it’s like the sun itself.

Loki’s heart skips as he and Frigga walk down toward the front. Thor never once looks away. When Frigga delivers Loki to him, a kiss to his cheek and a kiss to Thor’s, Loki can see Thor looking a little watery.

He feels a little watery himself.

“We gather here today,” Heimdall says, standing behind the two of the, “to join these two in marriage.”

“Lo,” Thor whispers and reaches forward to touch the white flowers and pearls pinned into Loki’s dark hair. “You look—”

“I like the flower,” Loki says with a coy smile. “Good choice.”

Thor laughs and takes both of Loki’s hands in his own. He squeezes them.

“I love you,” he mouths.

Loki smiles, his chest tight with feeling, his head a little fuzzy from happiness. He squeezes Thor’s hand back.  
  
  
The afternoon winds on, the sun setting slowly, the breeze winding between them.

Heimdall says some words and Thor and Loki say some words. They read their vows. Thor’s are long, romantic, so tooth-achingly sweet it would make a believer out of anyone skeptical of love. Loki’s aren’t quite so long, but they’re funny, heart-warming at times and surprisingly sincere at other times. He’s not much one for public sentiment, but he makes Thor cry anyway.

Heimdall asks them if they take one another, in sickness and in health, through good times and bad, through all of this life and maybe, all of the lives to come.

“I do,” Thor says. He cups Loki’s face. “For all of the lives.”

“I do,” Loki says wryly and leans into Thor’s hand. “As long as he can stand me.”

“Then, by the powers vested in me by the state and the Internet,” Heimdall says, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I pronounce you married. You may now kiss your husband.”

Thor barely waits. He has his hand in Loki’s hair, his other hand at Loki’s lower back and when he kisses Loki, he dips him low enough that the flower falls out of his hair.

Loki’s heart beats rapidly under his collarbone, but he laughs and winds his arms around Thor. He forgets they have anyone around them. He smiles and kisses his husband back.  
  
  
It’s a beautiful ceremony and a noisy, joyous celebration. They turn on music and move the chairs. There’s an endless supply of food and booze, courtesy of Frigga and Odin, respectively. The lights turn on once it becomes dark enough to see them. It’s a hazy evening, full of laughter and stories, bursting with what can only be described as love. They dance in the middle of the dance floor. Heimdall offers his hand to Frigga, until Odin cuts in. Fandral and Bucky try to dance to terrible electronic dance music. Sif pulls Valkyrie close for a slow dance.

Loki takes off his jacket and Thor takes off his. They let their hair down, the flowers falling to the ground. Thor unbuttons his vest and shirt and eventually Fandral brings him a bright red Hawaiian shirt. Someone—Bucky, probably—grabs Loki and puts him in one of Thor’s terrible band t-shirts. They dance, barefoot, under the stars.

Thor has his arm around Loki the entire time. Loki leans into Thor’s warmth, even though it’s much too hot for all of that.

Everyone toasts to their health; to their happiness; to their love.

They get far, far too drunk.

Loki eats far, far too much cake.

Someone takes pictures of everything—of the food, of the stars, of the dancing.

What Loki will remember most is none of that.

What he’ll remember is Thor in his ridiculous floral shirt, with his hair down, in white pants. He’ll remember Thor, arms loose around his husband’s waist, looking at him the entire night like he could have anything, but what he has—this, Loki—is the only thing he’s ever really asked for.

Loki is drunk with it. He’s breathless with joy.

He winds his arms around Thor, pulls him close, and kisses him until the sun comes back up. 

 

*

**seven.**

He gets the text message at eight am. He’s been awake for two hours already, Googling shiplap and adding a few designs to his Pinterest board.

 _hey._ it says. _need to get more clothes._

What does Loki do about that? He stares at his phone for almost fifteen minutes, reading and rereading what it says. There’s no double meaning here—just a transaction; a warning. He could be an asshole and just show up, grab his clothes, and leave again. He still has his keys after all. It would have thrown Loki into a spiral. That’s probably why he didn’t do it. Thor can break his heart, but heaven forbid he step on the pieces.

Loki’s on the verge of some kind of mental collapse, just reading the text. His heart is drumming rapidly in his ears. He feels his breath pull up short. He needs a fucking Xanax.

_ok. 10:30._

That gives him enough time to screw his head back on straight. Maybe take a shower.

Maybe run.  
  
  
It’s 10:30 on the dot when the doorbell rings. Loki has his hair tied back, a bandana covering half of it. He’s in old denim overalls, a thin white tank underneath it. He has paint smeared across his cheek.

Great.

He doesn’t know if he’s ready for this, but the bell rings again, so he seems rather out of options. He plods over, wiping his hands down his front. He ignores their shaking.

He opens the door.  
  
  
The thing is. Here’s the thing.

Since Loki was twelve years old, he’s been in love. He hadn’t known it at the time, but looking back at it now—the way his life had revolved around Thor, his entire mood, the way his whole body had vibrated whenever he was close to him—it’s clear. Thor hadn’t been only his foster brother or his best friend. He had been Loki’s first love; his everything.

And then after, for thirteen long years—every time Loki has seen Thor he’s been taken aback by it—by him. Thor is large, and strong, and beautiful. He’s golden, a child of Helios himself. He takes Loki’s very breath away. In thirteen years that’s not once changed.

Even here, in the doorway, in jeans and a rumpled blue hoodie, he’s still everything Loki has ever loved and desired.

It punches the breath out of him, his sheer want of him.

This was a mistake. He should have gone to the coffee shop.

“Hi,” Thor says, tentatively.

“You cut your hair,” Loki says abruptly.

Thor’s long, golden, beautiful hair. Loki had spent so many nights combing it, braiding it, just running his fingers through strands, nails against Thor’s scalp.

“Yeah,” Thor says, sounding self conscious. He runs a hand through the short strands. “I needed a...change.”

That hurts more than Loki can manage to say. He’s only too aware than in the three months since he’s seen his husband—ex? husband?—he’s done nothing but get dirtier. His hair hasn’t been washed in days.

“It looks,” Loki starts, but stops awkwardly. He doesn’t know what he’s allowed to say anymore.

There’s a terrible, awkward pause between them.

“Can I come in?” Thor asks, quietly. “I won’t be long. Just gotta grab some things and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Right,” Loki says. “Sorry.”

He steps to the side and Thor comes in. It’s only then that Loki notices the large duffel bag he’s carrying.

“Are you—” Thor starts and stops. He takes a breath. “How are the renovations?”

“Fine,” Loki says.

Thor waits for more. Loki’s suddenly forgotten words entirely. He looks at the dirt caked under his nails.

The air is pregnant, thick with everything unspoken and, unfortunately, everything that’s been spoken.

Loki tries not to remember their last fight. The second to their last fight? He distinctly remembers throwing a plate at Thor’s head.

“Is your head okay?” Loki asks at the same time Thor says, abruptly, “Okay, I’ll go grab my stuff.”

They look at one another and the tension is so awful Loki nearly laughs.

In all the years they’ve known each other, they’ve never been at such odds. Loki can’t remember a single time when neither of them has had nothing to say.

Or, at least, has had no idea how to say whatever it is they need to say.

“God, this is awful,” Thor chuckles a little, running his hand through his hair again. “I’m sorry. Guess I’m a little nervous.”

Loki wants to ask him why, but he doesn’t.

“Are things good?” he asks, instead. “With you?”

Thor pauses, as though unsure how to answer.

“Yeah, Lo—Loki,” he says. “Things are good with me.”

“Okay,” Loki says, swallong. “Good.”

It’s painful to stand there, dust in his hair, in a pair of old overalls, and think about Thor well and okay, moving on with his life. But they’re not together anymore. So what right does Loki have to Thor’s unhappiness?

“I’m gonna go,” Thor says and nods up the stairs.

Loki nods and steps aside.

He watches Thor take the stairs up to their bedroom. It’s been months since he’s been. Loki closes the front door, his hand shaking.  
  
  
All in all it takes maybe ten minutes.

“Are those my old overalls?” Thor asks, offering a thin smile.

He’s at the door again, with his duffel bag full of things. It’s just clothes, but they’re clothes Loki had laundered. Clothes he had folded and hung up, put away. When Thor leaves, he’ll take his things with him and that will be more space Loki doesn’t have the means to take up.

“Yes,” Loki says looking down with a frown. “Sorry.”

“Keep them,” Thor says. “They look good on you.”

“I’ve gotten dust and paint all over them,” Loki says and tries to pry off a paint chip.

“Everything always looks good on you,” Thor says.

Loki looks up at him, but Thor doesn’t let it grow awkward again. He picks up his duffel bag.

“Good luck,” Thor says. A pause. “Send me pictures? After. ...if you want.”

Loki nods his head distantly. He probably won’t.

“Take care of yourself, Loki,” Thor says. And then frowns. “And call mom. She’s worried about you.”

They don’t tell you that about separation. When two people break up—who gets the parents?

Every time Loki opens his phone to call Frigga, he stops. He stares at her name, thinks of all of her love and kindness over the years. What she said to him at their wedding. How he let her down.

The real kid gets his parents in the divorce; that’s how it works. Loki gets no one.

“I will,” Loki says. He probably won’t.

Thor nods and, for a moment, looks as though he’s going to lean in, kiss Loki out of habit. Loki’s heart hammers in confused, longing anticipation.

Thor doesn’t. He smiles instead, hoists his bag over his shoulder, and goes back to his car.

Loki watches him leave, everything sinking inside of him.  
  
  
He goes back up to their bedroom, slowly.

The closet door is open. Inside, the hangers swing lightly on the racks, bare, in all of that dark, empty space. 

 

*

**eight.**

How do you survive, knowing that the person you love is out there and that you can no longer have him, not because you don’t want him, but because you don’t know how to have him any longer? Loki thinks about this a lot, over glasses of wine he keeps filled to the brim.

“What happened?” Bucky asks, gently.

They’re at a wine bar, somewhere in the city, on a Saturday night, because Loki hasn’t left his house in two weeks and he’s stopped replying to text messages besides.

Bucky shows up at his door, leather jacket slung over his broad shoulder.

“Steve was worried,” he says. “I’m worried. Come on, get that paint out of your hair, we’re going out.”

It’s not that Loki puts up a fight, but it’s not that he doesn’t either. He’s so adrift now, hyperfocused on this renovation, as though it’s the only means of keeping himself together. He reaches up to his hair and his hand comes away with wet paint.

“This will take a bit,” he tells Bucky. He’s uncertain how to talk to him. He hasn’t talked to anyone in so long.

“I got time,” Bucky says. He forces himself in and plops down on the couch.  
  
  
An hour later, they’re downtown, drinking.  
  
  
So what does happen? Loki thinks over his glass of dark red.

How do you lose the love of your life and yourself in the process?  
  
  
Easily, it turns out. It barely takes a thought at all.  
  
  
It happens in bits and pieces.

Maybe they’re together so long, they forget to stop and take a breath. They go out on their date nights, but they find less and less to talk about. Thor comes home late, brings his work with him. He’s up at all hours, working through his business, designing apps, coding. The light in his study is on, long past when Loki goes to sleep. Loki goes to work early. In thirteen years, he hasn’t changed what he’s done. He supposes he never figured out how. He earns money because he has to, but there’s no passion in it; no love. He goes to work and answers phones, connects patients to their appointments, processes medical bills and payment plans. Thor asks him what he’d like to be doing instead and he has no answer. Maybe, if he had an answer, it would be different, but it isn’t. In thirteen years, he receives two promotions, but it’s not nearly enough to keep him interested, but it’s just enough to keep him settled, locked in place.

“We have money,” Thor says when Loki bitches to him. “You don’t have to keep doing something you hate. Do whatever you want to do.”

“I don’t _know_ what I want to do,” Loki snaps back at him. He’s frustrated by this—Thor’s inability to understand. “Not all of us can snap our fingers and end up with our perfect, dream career. Not all of us have the _ability_ to be satisfied with the first thing we do.”

“No,” Thor says, growing irritated. “Some of us just like to bitch about what we do instead, and how much we hate it, without actually _doing_ anything about it.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” Loki says, angrily. “I didn’t realize I could step out the front door and have my every desire fall into my lap.”

This makes Thor angry, every time they fight.

“I _worked hard_ for my company,” he growls. “Nothing _fell_ into my lap. It’s not my fault you don’t know what you fucking want to do. It’s not _my_ fault you’re not doing anything about it.”

This makes Loki angrier than he can possibly say—maybe because there’s a kernel of truth there that he’s loath to admit. Maybe because he knows the truth and wants one person in his life—the person he trusts most—to tell him something else.

Whatever the reason, they go to bed angry that night.  
  
  
Loki remembers that first night, the night of their wedding, Thor hovering above him, hand in Loki’s hair, devotion written clearly across his face. He had leaned down and kissed him and said, open and sincere, in the way only Thor can, “Let’s never go to bed angry, Lo. Promise me.”

It had seemed easy then, flush on drink and the heady, expansive feelings of that night, to smile at him, to reach up and kiss Thor and say, “I promise.”

Promises are easy; forgetting them is even easier.  
  
  
After a while, it wears on them. Thor is busy; Loki is frustrated. They fight. They’ve always fought, when it was healthy to do so—both stubborn and hot-headed, both well-intentioned, but terrible at communicating. Sometimes, they wouldn’t talk all day. Other times, Frigga would call and talk to one or the other. But at the end of the night, Thor would come to him, palms out in an offering.

“Are we okay?” he would ask and what was Loki to say to that? He was in love, after all.

“Of course,” Loki would say and Thor would take him into his large arms, where it felt safe. Thor had always felt at home, in that way.

Eventually, Thor stops asking and Loki stops saying it’s okay. Their fights grow more frequent—about expenses, about spending time with their friends, about having a family, about their careers, about renovations. There’s nothing they don’t fight about; no reason they don’t take to snipe at one another.

It eats away at them, Loki supposes. He watches this person he loves and finds in him a stranger; Thor’s face red with anger, twisted in an expression Loki doesn’t recognize. He supposes it must be the same for Thor; Loki’s hands clenched, his words sharp and mean. They forget what it means to talk to one another. They forget who and what they love.

Once, Thor would rest his chin on Loki’s shoulder, he remembers distantly. He had a bracelet he wore on his wrist Loki hasn’t seen in some years. Loki hasn’t cornered him in public in ages, on a hot summer day, when Thor’s hair is up and he’s in a tank top and shorts that has Loki hot to the touch. He hasn’t taken a touch for himself, nor given one either. Everything feels like an obligation, a chore.

Sometimes they look over at one another, in the middle of the night, and think: years ago, I would have reached over and touched this person. They settle into their sides of the bed, instead, Thor with his work tablet and Loki with a book. They don’t talk.

They go to bed angry more often than not.  
  
  
It’s never one thing, really. It’s the decay of years; things they don’t expect because they never looked for them.

Loki snipes at Thor for not cleaning up after himself and Thor snaps that Loki needs to get out of the house more. They don’t watch their words; they don’t realize how _mean_ they sound. They go for the jugular. They can’t help the way their chests heave, the anger that slices through their veins. Loki sees Thor across from him—eyes narrowed, something so close to loathing, Loki is startled.

He thinks: does he hate me now?

He thinks: do I remember what it’s like to miss my best friend?  
  
  
All good things come to and end and so, too, the bad. What happens is innocuous at best.

“He came home and I had watched something,” Loki says, his words nearly slurred. He looks at Bucky without seeing him, his mouth wet with wine. “Something we watched together. I don’t remember what. He was upset.”

Bucky pauses, hand hovering over a piece of bread.

“You watched something without him?” Bucky asks.

“It sounds stupid, doesn’t it?” Loki hiccoughs. He’s horrified to find his vision blurring. “How can you end a marriage over television?”  
  
  
But it’s not so simple, is it?

It wasn’t that Loki had watched it without him—it’s that Loki hadn’t thought about it at all. Thor, at work all week, looking forward to coming home and watching this one thing together with his husband—it hadn’t occurred to Loki that after all of this, after all of their unpleasantness, this could be something Thor wanted. He hadn’t thought Thor looked forward to him anymore.

Loki remembers looking at Thor’s hurt, angry face and thinking: he really does hate me now.

And what better way to deflect hate than to make sure you hate that person back?  
  
  
The fight was nothing like their others. It starts with Thor being hurt and it escalates because Loki hates that he hurt Thor. _How was I to know?_ he thinks later, as though the answer isn’t clear: _he’s your husband. You should have known._

They circle one another in the living room, venom dripping between them. It all comes out, then: every piece of bitterness, every poisonous, close-kept thought, the ire, the hurt, years of quietly held pain and unaddressed slights.

Thor accuses Loki of being without ambition, of being mean and picking fights no one else can possibly win, and Loki accuses Thor of being callous and selfish, of being so caught up in his own, arrogant world that he forgets about anyone else.

“You don’t love anyone but yourself,” Loki hisses, seething.

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Thor says, angry and hurt. “Take a look in a mirror the next time.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Loki asks. He’s nearly swaying.

“You haven’t cared about anyone else in years,” Thor says. The words sound like gravel in his mouth. He looks like Loki could break him with a sound. “You haven’t loved me in years.”

It’s a slap to the face Loki hadn’t thought to expect. He nearly reels under the weight of it—that Thor could look over at him and think that; that Thor could watch him for years and not see how he’s spent their entire adult lives living under the shadow of this; of how much he loves Thor.

It would have been so easy, to fix it.

It would have taken nothing to take a breath, to take Thor’s face between his hands and tell him: no, you have it all wrong.

He could have said the words: what would I be if not for us?

He’s thought it dozens of times. He knows, to the marrow of him, that he is nothing without Thor; that his love for him holds him in thrall.

What he says is:

“You’re right. I haven’t.”

It’s not so much a sink as a shatter.

Loki doesn’t know why he says it, only that Thor looks as though he’s stabbed him in the gut. As long as he lives, he thinks he won’t forgive himself this. There’s self-sabotage and there’s whatever _this_ was.

Maybe it’s for the best, he’ll try to console himself later.

They had been falling apart for longer than either of them had been willing to admit. Maybe all they had needed was a simple push.  
  
  
“I can’t do this anymore, Loki,” Thor says to him after the silence dries up.

He looks at his hands as though they’ve betrayed him and he looks up at Loki, shattered.

“I love you,” Thor says, his voice shaking. “But I can’t do this anymore.”  
  
  
He doesn’t tell Bucky everything.

“He broke my heart,” Loki says thickly, drunk. He tips back the rest of his wine, chugging it all at once. His head spins. The room spins.

“How?” Bucky asks, quietly.

“He left,” Loki says and he’s horrified to find that there are tears on his face.

It’s not that Loki had wanted to leave first. The thought had never occurred to him, and maybe that’s what had cut him through to the bone. No matter how bad he and Thor were, no matter how terrible his fight—he had never once thought about leaving Thor. It had never crossed his mind.

Where would he go? Who would he go to?

But Thor had. Thor had looked at Loki, at the fucked up, piece of shit he was, and he had found him lacking. He had realized, maybe finally, that he was better off somewhere else—with someone else—than he was here, in the fucked up, dysfunctional home he had made with a person he had thought he loved as a child.

“He left and now I’m all alone,” Loki says.  
  
  
Thor packs a suitcase that night. Loki stands in the doorway, watching. Maybe he should say something—take back what he’s said, say something else instead—but he doesn’t. Thor doesn’t move fast; he moves as though he wants Loki to stop him.

Loki doesn’t.

He thinks, if Thor wants to leave, then why would Loki be enough to stop him?

Thor drags the suitcase down the stairs and pauses at the door.

Loki stands at the bottom of the stairs, his arms crossed at his chests, his whole body shaking.

Thor looks like he wants to say something, to touch him. He doesn’t.

Loki thinks he could say something, or maybe that he should. He doesn’t.

Thor leaves, closing the door behind him.  
  
  
Loki sinks to the floor, his head in his hands, his mind blank, his feelings, his body—everything in agony.

He doesn’t see Thor again for three months.  
  
  
He doesn’t remember Bucky driving him home or tucking him into his enormous, empty bed by himself.

He does remember turning his head and seeing the picture on their bedside table: him and Thor, Thor in a Hawaiian shirt and Loki in a band t-shirt, laughing and kissing under the stars, on the best night of their lives.

Loki couldn’t stand the thought of Thor hating him. So he had ruined them both instead.

At the end of the day, this—like his parents, like his career, like all of the foster families that had never wanted him—was his fault too.

Who better to break your heart than you yourself?

He takes the picture and hurls it across the room. 

 

*

**nine.**

It takes him three days, but he manages to slowly move the new granite top from the bed of the truck, through the hallway, to the kitchen. He sands down the plywood underneath until it’s as smooth as his skin. Then he adds the industrial-strength glue, just like it shows him on the YouTube channel he’s been watching. He’s sore and panting by the time he manages to lift the entire granite slab into place, but he does it.

He takes a step back, looking at the painfully assembled kitchen island and he almost has to laugh in relief. When he imagined it, months ago, he had imagined almost exactly this. He hadn’t expected to assemble it by himself at that point. He had thought they would hire someone or, at a minimum, that he would have help. He hadn’t expected to do it all alone.

There’s something unbelievably satisfying about having made it himself. It makes him feel good, as though he does have some kind of worth in this world. His immediate instinct is to text Thor, so they can celebrate. _I’m so proud of you, Lo,_ Thor would say. _I told you you could do it._ Loki would act like it didn’t matter, but it would. He loved it when he was the reason Thor smiled. He loved making Thor proud.

The truth is terrible and sobering, as it always is.

The island stares at him in a new way, suddenly. It’s put-together and beautiful, and alone.

He turns off the kitchen light and goes back to the living room.

“Barnes,” he calls Bucky, head tilted back onto the couch, looking up at the ceiling. He has something gnawing at him, in the pit of his stomach. “I finished the kitchen counter.”

It’s not the same, but it’s something, maybe.  
  
  
Still. He doesn’t go back into the kitchen for two days. 

 

*

**ten.**

It’s one of their good days. They’re far and in between, but every once in a while, the stars and planets and their schedules and moods will align. Loki is at the kitchen counter, eating a breakfast of coffee and sliced apples and reading out loud from a magazine.

“Have you considered we could spice up our bedroom by,” he looks closer and snorts out laughter. “Sticking fruit in our asses, as far as I can tell.”

Thor is in shorts and thin t-shirt, sitting sideways on their couch, legs sprawled out in front of him. He’s just showered, so his hair is wet, combed back and dripping. Usually, this irritates Loki, but he’s in a good mood today. It’s sunny outside and Thor has the entire day off from his work responsibilities.

“Hm,” Thor says, looking over from the TV where he’s watching one of those medical dramas he loves. Chicago something. “What kind?”

“Bananas, obviously,” Loki snickers. “But there are other options. Say, how do you feel about sticking a pineapple up there?”

Thor gives him the most horrified look he’s given him in months. Loki knows he’s imagining what it might feel like to have his ass filled with prickles.

That makes Loki flat out _giggle_.

“Have some respect for my goods,” Thor says, scandalized. “Why is Cosmopolitan trying to give me a rupture?”

“There’s nothing sexier than a medical emergency,” Loki grins. He flips the page and it’s horoscopes. “Let’s see what the great minds over at Cosmo think is in the stars for Leos.”

“Why do we still have a subscription anyway?” Thor grumbles.

“It’s your subscription, dear,” Loki says.

He finishes his coffee, grabs another apple slice, and plods over to the couch. He looks down.

“Can I sit here?” he asks.

“Of course you can, Loki,” Thor says. He folds up one leg and Loki settles himself into the space next to Thor.

“Want an apple?” he asks and Thor nods. He feeds Thor the apple slice over his shoulder, while he thumbs through the horoscopes to find the one for Leo.

“Read it out loud to me,” Thor says, chewing. He rests his chin on Loki’s shoulder, looking at the magazine over him, and Loki feels something like a thrill in the pit of his stomach.

“Remember,” Loki says seriously. “If you make fun of your horoscope, you’ll be cursed by your sun _and_ moon signs for the next year.”

That makes Thor snort and he nudges the back of Loki’s jaw with his nose. That tickles and Loki squirms, but Thor catches him in between his arms. Loki’s heart races, a smile on his face.

“Fine, you brute,” he says. “I’ll read it out loud.”

He reads their horoscopes out loud and Thor, of course, makes fun of them. Then they move on to other articles, some that make them laugh, others that make them cringe. They tire of that and Thor flips through the channels until he finds one playing Jurassic Park. They sit on the couch, Loki leaning into Thor, Thor’s arms around Loki, and they watch the movie, commenting when they want to, trading opinions on the worthiest dinosaurs, and laughing when Jeff Goldblum appears on the screen. Loki is caught in Thor’s arms the entire time.

Thor turns Loki around when the movie finishes, crawls over him, until Loki’s pressed back against the couch.

Loki’s heart is hammering against his ribcage as Thor kisses him and he doesn’t try to quiet his moans when they fuck.  
  
  
It’s after, both of them back in their pants and nothing else, leaning over the kitchen counter, sharing a bowl of fruit, when Thor says it.

“Hey, what do you think about remodeling?”

Loki blinks, a cube of mango in his mouth.

“The house?”

“Yeah,” Thor says. He looks around the kitchen. “I mean we can start here and then work our way out. You’ve been complaining about this kitchen for years. It’s too small, it’s not the right colors, the light fixtures irritate you. Why don’t we fix it?”

“I don’t know,” Loki says dubiously. “Sounds like a big project. It’ll probably be expensive.”

“We have the money,” Thor says, reaching over and taking a piece of pineapple. “And you have the time. You were looking for a project, right?”

Loki doesn’t know how to tell Thor that he hasn’t quit his job yet. In a pique of rage, he had finally screamed at Thor a month ago that _fine! I’ll quit, if that makes you happy!_ Instead of discouraging him, Thor had thrown up his hands and said _fucking finally!_ But old habits die hard. Loki still hadn’t managed to turn in his notice. He doesn’t know what will happen when he does.

He doesn’t want to spoil the mood by pointing this out to Thor.

“I suppose,” he says.

“Come on, Lo,” Thor says. It’s the first time in weeks he’s used his favorite nickname and it makes Loki flush with pleasure. Before he knows it, Thor is behind him again, arms wrapped around his waist, pressing kisses into his jaw. “It can be a team effort. We can pick out everything together—the tiles, the lights, the cabinets. We can paint the entire place.”

“You have terrible decorating sense,” Loki says wrinkling his nose and Thor gives him a little bite to his jaw for that. Loki yelps and Thor laughs.

“You’ll be our leader,” Thor says. “We’ll do it together. I’ll be here to follow your instructions. Come on.”

Thor sounds so excited, so _thrilled_ by the prospect of working together and Loki—God, it’s been so long since he’s felt this way around his husband. He turns around in Thor’s arms and wraps his arms around his broad shoulders.

Even if it’s just for the night, he wants to float away on this feeling, on the wild, terrifying breadth of Thor’s ideas.

“You will help me?” Loki asks. “I won’t be forced to do all of this alone?”

Thor laughs and picks Loki up, spins him around, and then presses him against the kitchen island, kisses him until he’s breathless.

“I promise,” Thor says. “I won’t leave you alone.” 

 

*

**eleven.**

He stares at the destruction around him, alone. The kitchen island is beautifully intact now, but the floorboards still need to be put in, the kitchen wall de-tiled and re-tiled, and the light fixtures—Loki stares up at them with a sinking heart. That would have been a lot easier with someone half a foot taller than him.

He rolls up the sleeves to the long shirt he’s wearing under his—Thor’s—overalls today and decides to start at the backsplash under his precious cabinets. The tiles are worn and a beige color, which he had hated to begin with and which makes his skin crawl now. He and Thor had picked out nice, teal tiles together.

“You’re not going to get tired of looking at them, are you?” Thor had asked, knowingly, when Loki had pointed out the color to him.

“My life is draining from me every time I look at the color beige, Thor,” Loki had said dramatically. Thor had snorted, but assented.

“I like teal,” he had said, smiling. “It reminds me of the flowers at our wedding.”  
  
  
Loki takes a few hours slowly, painstakingly, prying the old tiles from the wall. He watches a video on how to use the grout tool to crumble the grout. The tool looks like an ice pick the size of his forearm. He wedges it in between the tiles and uses a mallet to crush the hardened caulk.

It doesn’t take long before he’s sweating and cursing. The mallet feels heavier every time he lifts it. His arms ache with the effort and every time he hits a particularly difficult piece of caulk, his entire body shakes so much in exhaustion he wants to cry. He grits his teeth and carries on instead, lips pursed into a thin line, determination and spite the only two impulses left in his tiring body.

The grout is the hardest part. Once he’s able to chip away at it, he uses a wide-blade putty knife to pry the tiles loose. He sticks the flat blade under the beige squares and puts his back into it. The first tile tries to stick, but the rest are easier. Not a few break when he pries too hard and he frowns at the marks left behind on the wall.

It’s slow going, but eventually he has a pile of dirty, chipped kitchen tiles in a corner. He chugs half a bottle of water, eats an apple that’s gone slightly soft, and returns with putty and the new, teal tiles.  
  
  
The boxes came in over the course of a few weeks. Some things they had gone to the hardware store to buy; these equipment and materials they left covered in the back of the truck. Other things they ordered for delivery. Sometimes Thor would be home to receive them and sometimes Loki was. Even on one of their bad days, it would give the some common ground to come together around.

“Look,” Loki pulled on Thor’s arm. Thor had just come home from work and the gym, sweaty and tired. They had fought over dishes the night before. But Thor had come over anyway, smiled at the boxes as Loki opened them excitedly.

“They’ll look good in the kitchen,” Thor said, lifting one out from the box and holding it up to the kitchen light. The small diamond tile looked even smaller in his large hand. “I like the color.”

“I told you,” Loki grinned. “You never trust me.”

Thor’s smile had dimmed slightly at that.

“Of course I trusted you,” he had said. “I always trust you. You just never believe me.”  
  
  
He gets into a soothing kind of rhythm, applying putty and then carefully, methodically, placing the tiles into place, one by one. The backsplash starts to fill out slowly, but surely—the depressing, empty white replaced with a teal that brightens and transforms the feel of the entire room.

When Loki puts the last tile into place, it’s nearly dark outside again. He hasn’t eaten all day, he’s sore, he’s sweaty, but there’s a fleeting, bittersweet sense of satisfaction as he surveys his work.

“I told you,” Loki says quietly, out loud.

His voice echoes eerily into the emptiness around him.  
  
  
He doesn’t really know what happens. He’s working on laying the floorboard on one side of the kitchen when he hears a crash so loud it nearly has him jumping out of his skin. Loki jumps up and whirls around, his heart pounding wildly, only to see one of the cabinets—one of his beautiful, mahogany cabinets—has crashed down over the sink.

Loki abandons his post and goes to inspect the wreckage.

The cabinet is mostly intact, although there’s a large scratch down its side, the silver knob has been knocked askew, and the cabinet door has been ripped from one of its hinges. On the wall, where it had previously hung, it seems like a great weight has been torn out.

Loki opens and closes the broken door with an enormous feeling of sadness.

Thor had helped him put these cabinets up, months ago.

“We can’t leave them in the car, Loki,” Thor had said, one Saturday. “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow. Let’s just get them in and put them up. It’ll be a nice weekend project.”

Loki had bitched about it and it hadn’t been a particularly easy endeavor, but he had stood back and watched Thor search videos online about how to install cabinets and then proceed to do it himself. Thor had tied his hair back, his work clothes loose, drawstring pants, and a thin, white tank top that had done nothing to hide the plains of muscles rippling up and down his entire back.

Loki had made lemonade and Thor had measured and lifted and drilled and hammered and Loki had tried to help, but mostly made himself a nuisance. There had been moments of tension, but it hadn’t been the worst day they’d had by far. Thor had even thanked him for the lemonade and Loki could tell, from the way the corners of his mouth weren’t straining, that he even meant it.  
  
  
There’s nothing symbolic about kitchen cabinets, but it feels like there is. Loki runs a finger down the scratch in its side, a lump forming in his throat. It sits there heavily, growing thicker as the weight in his chest grows heavier, like a boulder pressing against his lungs, an anvil over his heart. Thor had put this cabinet up and Loki hadn’t helped, maybe, but he had been there with him. He had been there when they had picked it out, together, had been there when they had bought it at the store and drove it back to their house.

Loki had helped Thor drag the cabinets inside, had helped him take the old cabinets down. In his mind, he had envisioned everything then—their new kitchen, their old home, made new, a home they shared together; a home they would always share together.

It hits him harder than he expects it to, just knocks him sideways—the grief.

It’s not just a kitchen cabinet. It’s them; it’s what they were; it’s what they should have been.

Loki’s hands shake as he tries to close the broken cabinet door. It doesn’t catch like it’s supposed to—it slides sideways instead, the hinge broken, the door now uneven.

It’s ruined, Loki thinks.

He steps back from the wrecked cabinet and covers his face with his hands, shaking.

What’s broken can’t be fixed, he knows. He’s broken almost everything he’s ever touched.

He tries.

God, he _tries_.

He tries to take the door off the hinges entirely, but he can’t get the bottom hinge loose. He tries to screw the knob back in, but it keeps turning around and around, barely moving, completely useless. He finds the drill and measuring tools and tries to remember what Thor did in the first place. He tries to fix the broken wooden ledger, but it drills on crooked. He tries to haul the cabinet back up and it keeps sliding back down. He puts his entire length, his entire strength into it, panting and heaving, trying to lift it up, trying to set it on the crooked ledger, just so he can have enough leverage to drill it back against the wall.

The entire thing collapses. The edges of the cabinet slip out of his arms, the ledger breaks neat in half. Loki gasps and stumbles back, the entire cabinet smashing between the counter and the sink. The faucet bends sideways. The cabinet cracks in half, splintering on the kitchen counter, the rest crashing onto the floor. Huge pieces of wood go skittering across, long splinters everywhere, the knob rolling clean away, the door cracked down the middle.

The sudden destruction reverberates around the quiet, empty room. The noise is jarringly violent in his ears. Loki’s heart beats so fast that his chest hurts. His adrenaline spikes, his fear, his grief, his frustration—God, _all_ of it colliding. It crashes over him, every single feeling he’s harbored, a wave hard as stone, crushing into him with the force of a destroyed kitchen cabinet.

He can’t breathe all of a sudden.

It’s too much for him to handle, the overwhelming, horrifying, unbelievable weight of it.

He’s on the floor before he can think better of it, crouched, one hand over his face, the other scrabbling in his pocket.

He pulls it out, the shattered screen lit bright—too bright—in the dark of the kitchen.

He’s not thinking straight. He can’t hear his thoughts. He can’t breathe.

The phone rings and rings.

Not once does he pick up, but Loki tries again.

He tries once, twice, three times.

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” he sobs into a voicemail. “ _Please help me. I don’t know what to do._ ”

He sucks air into his lungs, but it’s not enough. His vision is blurred, the front of his clothes wet with tears. He’s shaking so badly, he can barely hold onto the phone.

“ _Please, Thor_ ,” he calls back again, crying, unable to catch his breath. “ _I was wrong. I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I’m sorry. I’m sorry._ ”

The phone falls from his hand after the fourth time, goes sliding into the wreckage.

Loki leans back against his perfect kitchen island, wraps his arms around his knees, and cries. 

 

 

 

*

**twelve.**

He feels arms around his shoulders.

He’s worn thin, run ragged, cut to the very bone of him. The movement dislodges him again. He feels unmoored, his anchors gone. He buffets against dark shores unknown, his entire weary, hurt, grief-stricken being.

“Oh, Lo,” a voice says in his ear. “Why didn’t you call me earlier? Why did you do this all by yourself, sweetheart?”

Loki wraps his arms around. He’s lifted clean off the ground, one arm behind his back, the other under his knees. He buries his face into a warm, soft neck.

“You left me,” Loki says, voice wet and rough. His heart breaks in his chest, over and over again, pieces of his love splintering in delicate places. “You left me alone, for so long.”

He presses against him, shaking under his grief. The arms tighten around him, pulling him closer.

“I was never anywhere else,” Thor says, low and soft. “I’ve always been here, with you.”

“That’s not true,” Loki swallows air and water. His eyes burn, his throat burns, his skin hot with fever. “You left me. I wasn’t enough. _You left me._ ”

He feels a mouth at his temple, a mouth to the top of his head. He feels a heart beat outside of his body, firm and strong. He feels a love he would drown under.

“I thought you didn’t love me anymore,” Thor says, quiet, like a whisper. He sounds heartbroken.

Loki feels the weight shift beneath him.

Now he’s sitting on the bed. Thor tries to put him down, but Loki won’t let him.

Thor kneels at his feet and Loki wraps his arms around his shoulders again, tight, like a child.

“I don’t know how to not love you,” Loki says, a gut punch to them both. His chest, heaving, his hands, shaking. “That’s the only thing I know how to do.”

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, face pressed into Loki’s chest, arms around Loki’s middle. He holds him so tightly, Loki can’t breathe. He’s shaking too. He’s falling apart, here, in the middle of them, in the circumference of Loki’s arms. “I didn’t know. I’m _sorry_. Please forgive me, Loki.”

“I love you,” Loki says, his throat thick, his tears catching in Thor’s hair. He sounds small. He sounds scared. He is both of these things. “I’m sorry. _I’m sorry._ I love you, please don’t leave me again.”

Thor shakes into him, pressing kisses to his chest, his collarbone, then his neck.

“I won’t,” he murmurs, a wrecked promise against feverish skin. “I’m nothing without you. You’re the only thing I want. I love you. _I love you._ ”

Loki keeps him there, trembling, palms against his neck, holding onto him, like a raft in the middle of a great storm. Thor kisses his throat and his jaw and his chin. Then, lifting his hands to Loki’s wet face, fingers framing him, brushing tears out of his eyes, he kisses him on the mouth. He kisses him like he can swallow Loki’s fear, like his fingertips can soothe the shattered edges of Loki’s broken heart. He kisses him again and again, tears mingling between them, breaths coming up short, until Loki pulls him up off the ground, to him. Thor straddles him on the bed, hovering over him, Loki’s arms around his waist, Thor’s fingers curled into Loki’s shirt.

They kiss, swallowing each other like a breath of life. They kiss, with something old and familiar and something searingly new. They kiss, like they’ve finally realized that the only thing worth fighting for is this, to hold onto one another, to find the person you share half your soul with and remember to love him and continue to love him, even long after you’ve forgotten.

If they remember nothing else, they’ll remember this—the feeling of spine-shattering grief and desperation, Thor’s fingers in Loki’s hair, and Loki’s face in the crook of Thor’s neck, the thought of a future without each other and how desperately unbearable that feels. Maybe they don’t always agree and maybe sometimes they forget all the years they’ve had between them, but they hold each other now, with the realization of something more, that this, being together, is better than anything else they can ever achieve apart.

It settles into Loki’s bones, the truth he has known all along. He’s been stupid all this time. Living without Thor isn’t living at all.

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, voice cracking, his eyes closed, their foreheads touching. The shake rolls down his spine, from the very top to the very bottom of him. “I’ve been so stupid. I’ll be better, Lo. We’ll be better. We’ll _try_.”  
  
  
Loki feels it in the heart of him, the deep, bottomless fear of the strongest person he’s ever known. He’s not the only one who’s been lost, he thinks. They’ve both been adrift, frightened and alone, for a long time. All they need is a single hand, one person reaching down through the stormcast waters, to pull the other back up.

He holds Thor and kisses his forehead. He kisses his cheek. He kisses his mouth.

He kisses his mouth.

“Come home,” Loki says, and kisses him again. “I miss you, Thor. I love you. Come home.” 

 

 

***

**one year later.**

“Are you sure about this?” Loki asks.

He sets the box carefully down in the corner of the room.

“Teal is a gender neutral color,” Thor says. He’s in overalls, with nothing underneath. His hair is tied back. It’s grown out again. There’s a paintbrush in his hand.

“It’s a very specific color,” Loki says. “What if they don’t like it?”

Thor wipes the sweat from his brow against the back of his hand. The paintbrush comes dangerously close to swiping him. Loki eyes it with a squint.

“Did you care that much?” Thor asks. “About the color of your room?”

That makes Loki’s stomach twist a little. He looks down at his bare feet and shakes his head.

“I just want everything to be perfect,” he says, quietly. “I know what it’s like, being in the system. I don’t want to be just another place they hate.”

There’s silence for a moment, then Loki feels hands on his shoulder.

“Hey,” Thor says, kindly. “You scared?”

Loki shakes his head. Then he nods.

“How could I not be?” he answers. “What if I’m just like my father?”

Thor shakes his head, presses a kiss to Loki’s temple.

“If there is one thing I know, without a doubt,” he says. “It’s that you’re going to be a great father. It doesn’t matter who the kid is or what they do, I know you’re going to love them.”

Thor has paint splattered all down the front of his denim, but Loki can’t help it. He wraps his arms around his husband’s middle.

“How can you be so sure?” he asks.

“Because I know you,” Thor smiles. “And because half of our room is filled with toys you’ve already bought them.”

Loki makes a face at that and Thor laughs. Okay, admittedly, he might have gone overboard. He had just gotten excited when they had gotten the call. A foster child—a little girl, three years old, from a broken family, placed with them.

“Aren’t you scared?” Loki asks, looking at Thor.

After everything they’ve been through in the last few years, Loki doesn’t think it’s unreasonable for him to be worried.

“Oh I’m scared shitless,” Thor says, matter of fact. “Why do you think I’m spending my energy painting the new room?”

Loki wrinkles his nose.

“To be useful?”

“When have I _ever_ been useful, Loki?” Thor says and Loki laughs at that, bright and delighted.

Thor looks at him the way he always does these days, the way he used to, a long time ago—like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen. Like the more Loki is with him, the more he wants of him. Thor looks at Loki like he can’t possibly ever get enough of him and Loki drinks that up, like a sunflower to the sun.

He reaches up and scratches at Thor’s scalp. Thor lets out a deep, satisfied sigh from somewhere deep inside him. He leans into Loki’s touch.

“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” Loki asks.

Thor blinks and looks down.

Don’t get Loki wrong. This overall and no shirt look is doing incredible things for him and he’s been eyeing his husband’s bare chest and all of the little golden curls of hair there for about an hour. In about ten minutes, he’s going to unbuckle Thor’s overall straps and they’re going to do some things in one of their many new rooms.

“I was hot,” Thor complains.

“You’re going to get paint on you,” Loki says. “And then you’ll look like some teal goblin.”

“But like, a hot one,” Thor says.

“I’m not helping you wash that out of your skin,” Loki declares.

Thor gets that look. That really dangerous one. It’s a glint in his eyes, the way his mouth curls up at the corners.

Loki immediately starts backing away.

“Thor…”

“Loki?” Thor says, innocently. It’s not innocent at all, the bastard.

“Keep that thing away from me,” Loki warns.

“What thing?” Thor asks. Then his raises his paintbrush. “Oh, this thing?”

“Thor, no!” Loki yelps, just before Thor comes after him.

He chases Loki around the room, tarp crinkling under their feet. Loki shouts and Thor yells and the two of them are puffing out laughter when Thor finally catches Loki by the back of his shirt, pulling him back until he hits Thor’s enormous chest with some force. Thor immediately wraps his arms around Loki, painting a teal stripe down from his neck all the way to the top of his jeans.

“You brute! I hate you!” Loki shouts, in between bouts of panting and laughter.

Thor’s laughing too, his chest heaving against Loki’s back. His arms keep Loki locked against him, but he lets go of the paintbrush. It splatters onto the plastic tarp. He kisses Loki’s neck sloppily, with enthusiasm, which is a feat because the two of them are unable to stop laughing.

He trails his mouth down Loki’s neck, to the top of his shoulder, which is bare because his loose shirt has slid enough to the side to expose it. Thor takes his time there, his beard roughing up the skin until it’s pink and sensitive.

“Thor,” Loki complains, breathlessly.

Thor answers by trying to kiss down to Loki’s collarbone.

“You have to finish—" Loki tries, but now Thor’s hand is trying to slip under his shirt, his fingers brushing the top button of Loki’s jeans. “Oh for the love of—"

Loki turns abruptly in Thor’s arms.

Thor blinks down at him.

“Honestly,” Loki says, barely hiding a smile. Some of Thor’s hair has come loose from his ponytail. It flops down in his face. Loki moves it, his heart beating fast. He loves this now; looking at Thor and remembering how much he loves him, how much he always wants to be touching him.

“Yes?” Thor says innocently. Loki’s palm is at his cheek, so he turns his head to kiss it.

“I cannot believe you are trying to get fresh with me while wearing _overalls_ ,” Loki says.

Thor snorts.

“What would you like me to be wearing instead?” Thor asks.

That, Loki can answer.

He grins, leaning in, mouth ghosting over Thor’s mouth.

His hand goes to the left strap and he quickly undoes the buckle.

“‘Nothing,” Loki says.

Thor hand finds its way under Loki’s shirt, his large palm firmly at Loki’s lower back. A hot spark licks down Loki’s spine.

“Strange,” Thor says. “That’s my preference too.”

Loki grins and the strap slides off Thor’s shoulder.  
  
  
They finish painting the new room, eventually. Thor orders them three boxes of pizza to celebrate. They sit on their new couch in their new living room in their new house, sharing slices of cheese and olive and too many bottles of beer.

Loki leans against Thor. Thor has his arm around Loki.

They talk. They bicker a little. They watch some superhero movie neither of them pay much attention to. They do something they haven’t done in a long time, but that they’ve been trying to do more, conscientiously, lately—they share their dreams, their fears, their hopes. They approach each other with vulnerability, an openness they hadn’t realized they’d slowly been shutting the door on.

“We have therapy tomorrow,” Loki says through a mouthful of cheese.

“I know,” Thor says. He takes swig of his beer. “I cleared the afternoon for it.”

They go to therapy together. It’s difficult. Some days they leave feeling raw, deconstructed, angry and loose and bitter. They never leave feeling unhappy.

“What do you want Thor to know?” their therapist will always ask Loki, at the end of the session.

“That I love him,” Loki will say, exhausted but truthful.

“And what do you want Loki to know?” she’ll ask Thor.

“That he’s not alone,” Thor will say, even when he’s frustrated, reaching for Loki’s hand. “That he’s enough.”

Relationships are about vulnerability and communication. They’re about fighting for what you know is worth fighting for. They know this now—that they will fight for this, and for each other, for as long as they live.

They move.

It’s a decision they make, together, shortly after Thor comes home.

“Let’s start over,” Loki says. “Let’s make new memories, somewhere else.”

Thor smiles.  
  
  
Loki decides what he really wants to do is to find out what it is he wants to do. So he takes stock of his talents and tells Thor he wants to be a freelancer for a while. He’ll write, he’ll do design work. Sometimes he’ll help someone flip a house.

“I’m getting good with a hammer,” Loki grins.

“Mmm I love a man who’s good with his hands,” Thor says as he kisses him.

He’s surprised to find it makes him happy. He likes the flexibility, he likes the variety of tasks. He likes that he can be home, with their foster child, when she finally comes to live with them.

“Was I always meant to be a stay at home dad?” Loki asks Bucky over one of their standing wine dates.

“Is that why you’ve been baking me so many cookies?” Bucky asks wryly. He has a ring on his finger now.

Another thing Loki has done—become an Internet ordained minister for his best friend’s wedding. That had been a fun night. Steve and Bucky had gotten wasted on expensive champagne and Thor and Loki had climbed into a fountain after them to make sure they didn’t drown. The four of them had ended up fantastically drunk and not a little wet.

“Baking is my passion,” Loki says with a straight face and drains his red wine.  
  
  
It’s not all easy. They fight, of course. They have disagreements, arguments where neither of them is willing to budge. They’re both stubborn. They both have a temper. Sometimes what starts off as irritation ends in yelling. It’s a fact of life, that nothing will ever be perfect.

But even then, on their worst days, when Thor is pissed at Loki and Loki is at his wit’s end with Thor, before they crawl into bed, Thor will take a deep breath, and reach out to him.

“Let’s not go to sleep angry, okay?” he’ll say. He’ll offer his hand, palm up; a peace offering.

Loki will try to center himself; take a breath.

“Okay,” he’ll agree. He’ll take Thor’s hand. He’ll say, “I love you, Thor.”

He’ll mean it.  
  
No matter how angry they are, or frustrated, or bitter, this will crack Thor’s veneer. He’ll smile.

“I know,” he’ll say, voice thick. “I love you too.”  
  
  
Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? At the end of the day. Life is hard and relationships are harder, but this, at the heart of them is the one and only truth.

That Thor loves Loki.

That Loki loves Thor.

And sometimes that may not seem enough, but it is, for them. For them, it’s the very truth of them.

And on those days when it seems like they can’t possibly survive—well, Thor will reach out his hand or Loki will reach out his, and the other will take it.

And together, they’ll try. 

 

 

*

_I know, things aren't quite like what they used to be_  
_Different faces, different places, yeah_  
_We can try, oh we can try_  
[ [we can try by between the trees](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2tsCUm4D4s) ]

  
_image: loki and thor sitting on the ground, thor in overalls, while painting the room; art by shineonloki_

**Author's Note:**

> \+ Art commissioned from the AMAZING shineonloki! Support her by following her work + sharing her art on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/shineonloki1/status/1128879896955183104)!
> 
> \+ Title from [To Build a Home](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUFJJNQGwhk) by The Cinematic Orchestra, which is also the perfect song for them and for this. I highly recommend giving it a listen.
> 
> \+ If you're looking for more human AUs, try out [Sanctify](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16498166)!
> 
> \+ Post available to RT [here](https://twitter.com/spacerenegades/status/1118633898869710848) on Twitter and reblog [here](https://spacerenegades.tumblr.com/post/184257714543/to-build-a-home-crinklefries-thor-movies) on Tumblr, if you'd so like. :)


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